Shadows Out of Time

It spoke to me though Sean’s mouth, told me things about myself and the universe and the dream-work of your grandfather that poor Sean could never know. It told me how the earth was formed, the number of stars in the Milky Way, what really killed the dinosaurs, how Rome fell, the name of the ancient lost planet to which Mars had been a mere satellite, the origins of the human species in the grottoes deep beneath the Antarctic where the shoggoths once slithered in obeisance to the Old Ones before the great rebellion, the time before the shoggoths slaughtered their masters, then turned around and created slaves of their own — hairless apes meant to be nothing more than mindless drones…

And it told me about my seventh birthday, the one I spent alone in the dark beneath the stairs while I listened to the soft, pulpy sounds of my mother’s face being beaten into a wall. I never saw the attacker. He was never charged or even arrested. In my infantile mind he was something beyond the physical, a being I could never truly visualize, a being I kept stored away in a tiny room in the back of my head. It took all of my willpower to keep that door closed. Sometimes I wondered if I’d become a psychiatrist merely to deal with the overwhelming pain locked inside that tiny room.

The creature, who identified itself as a member of the Great Race of Yith, could not tell me what the murderer looked like. It could see nothing beyond the dark beneath the stairs, the dark inside my own mind. This told me its knowledge was limited. It wasn’t omniscient. It was just very, very old.

I finished lighting the candles, then completed the protection spell. “Are you ready, Sean?” I asked.

The boy could only nod.

I deferred to the tools of a science far older than the limited systems of knowledge I had studied at University. I removed the Tarot cards from my desk drawer. I laid them out on the carpet just outside the circle. Sometimes the proper combination would trigger the being’s presence. If that didn’t work, I would have to try the evocation. But such spells drained a great deal of energy from me. I hoped to avoid it if at all possible.

I took a deep breath and drew the first card.

The Eight of Cups. Upside down.

Sean didn’t move. He seemed paralyzed, like a living statue.

Then the Knight of Pentacles.

Sean closed his eyes, began to rock back and forth. The left side of his face twitched ever so slightly.

Nine of Pentacles. Upside down.

Sean doubled over, clawing at his stomach. He appeared to be having an epileptic fit. The faint scent of ozone filled the air, like the smell of a coming electrical storm.

Six of cups.

Sean moaned as if feeling the mounting pressure of a coming orgasm. The hair on my arms stood on end. The sound of clicking filled the room, a thousand grasshoppers rupturing a quiet country night.

Five of Pentacles.

Sean whispered, “Please no, please go away.” Despite being a naïve young man, his will was very strong. He’d managed to push the thing away many times in the past. This time, however, I hoped he didn’t succeed.

I remember thinking, Don’t you dare listen to him. Let’s get this damn thing over with. Now.

The final card. The nineteenth of the Major Arcana. Le Soleil. The Sun.

Sean cocked his head back and opened his mouth wide as if in the throes of ecstasy. His fingers dug into the ground so violently the carpet tore away like tinfoil. He stared at me with black misty eyes. And he spoke. That voice, that familiar voice, the sound of insects scurrying over a corpse-strewn battlefield…

Hello again, Miss Keil.

Each syllable was slightly out of synch with the other; though they overlapped one another, at the same time there seemed to be long gaps between them. I didn’t understand the paradox, accepted it and moved on.

I said, “Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we? I’d like to make you an offer.”

Sean pressed his fingertips together to form a steeple. He cocked his head to the right and smirked. He moved his torso from side to side as if trying to manipulate limbs that weren’t there. I am intrigued, he said. Continue.

I tried to calm down. If only I could stop sweating. But that voice! It was so God damn cold.

I cleared my throat and said, “During our previous conversations you’ve…indicated that your…your possession of the boy was completely arbitrary. Isn’t that correct?”

Sean nodded, then sniffed the air. Interesting. Your sweat glands are swelling considerably. I presume you are uncomfortable?